Israel’s Whisky Live 2025 to feature local malt honoring Kibbutz Be’eri

When Israel’s whisky aficionados gather September 10-11 at Expo Tel Aviv for the 11th Whisky Live, they’ll sip and taste spirits and launch a whiskey made from wheat grown at Kibbutz Be’eri, one of the communities hardest hit on October 7, 2023.

The whisky is called Single Be’eri, a single malt project led by Be’eri resident and former Knesset member Haim Jelin, distilled at Tel Aviv’s Milk & Honey, with part of the proceeds donated to the rehabilitation of communities in the Western Negev.

“After October 7, we’re all figuring out how to help,” said Tomer Goren, head distiller at M&H. “This is just one of the ways.”

Goren, who owns and manages Whisky Live, takes his spirits seriously, much like his fellow whisky drinkers.

Some 9,000 people attended last year’s Whisky Live, said Goren, who expects at least that many this year, if not more.

“It grows each year,” said Goren.

Goren has been distilling whisky for 25 years, after discovering the amber spirit while bartending at his kibbutz pub and then fermenting his own batches at home.

He became the chief distiller at M&H, now Israel’s largest whisky maker, when it was first launched 12 years ago, and his career has revolved around the Israeli spirits scene.

This year’s Whisky Live will include tastings of rare bottles, master classes with a leading expert from Australia and a workshop with a British authority on English whisky.

Eight of the nine existing Israeli distilleries will have booths at Whisky Live, and the two-day event will include a whisky tasting panel with Gil Firth, a firefighter who heads Israel’s online whisky community, Whisky Lovers.

Firth, 37,  is one of Israel’s stalwart whisky fans, who discovered the spirit after he completed his army service.

He runs the online club of whisky drinkers with close to 27,000 members, making it one of the largest online whisky groups and one of the top 10 whisky groups worldwide that isn’t conducted in English, said Firth.

He’s well-versed in the world of the Israeli whisky drinker, noting that Israelis tend to like bold flavors and good quality and aren’t afraid to spend money on their spirits.

Firth was separated from his own extensive whisky collection over much of the last two years, as he and his family were among the tens of thousands of families evacuated from the north and south.

They had to leave their home in Kibbutz Eilon near the Lebanese border, as Hezbollah fired missiles at Israel in the months after October 7.

Firth and his young family moved in with his parents at their home in Mesilot, a northern community near Beit Shean. His mother happened to be visiting his sister in Kibbutz Be’eri on October 7, where she lived. They survived the Hamas onslaught.

Amid the war, Firth commuted to his job as a crew commander in the Carmel Central Galilee fire station.

Now, nearly two years later, the Firths moved back home with their three young children, including their youngest, born six months ago. Gil’s back at his own house, reunited with his whiskies.

“What makes me different than other whisky lovers is that I always love trying anything,” he said. “I love old world whiskies and new world whiskies, it’s all part of the whisky journey for me.”

Both Goren and Firth noted that a more patriotic side of Israeli whisky drinkers has emerged since the Hamas terrorist attack of October 7 and the ensuing war, signifying their deep desire to dig in and drink locally-distilled Scotch, whenever possible.

There have been multiple drives and donations, as whisky aficionados buy bottles for soldiers who have been injured, or for Israelis who were evacuated from their homes at the start of the war.

In the weeks after October 7, Firth organized Israel’s distilleries to make a whisky blend called Supernova, made from the amber spirits of Israel’s nine distilleries.

The whisky was named for the desert rave where hundreds were killed and taken hostage on October 7. All proceeds from sales of the 360 bottles, at more than NIS 50,000 (around $15,000), went to nonprofits helping Nova survivors, as well as children evacuated from the Gaza envelope region.

Now, two batches of Single Be’eri were made with barley grown at Be’eri and then sent for malting in Germany, a process that turns the grain’s starches into fermentable sugars, using massive drums not yet found in the Israeli whisky scene. (Most Israeli distillers import their fermented mash, some aging their whisky in Israeli wine barrels to distinguish their experimental new world spirits.)

Each batch of Single Be’eri includes 710 bottles, and Goren said they’ll produce as many batches as needed.

“It’s an odd thing, but the trauma of October 7 raised the Israeli whisky profile,” said Firth. “The distilleries are expanding, people are paying more attention to the local whiskies.”

Whisky Live will be held September 10-11, 2 p.m. to 11 p.m., Expo Tel Aviv